How We Actually Increased Our Happiness During A Global Pandemic EP#040

This week is our one year anniversary episode where we look back and realize we actually increased our happiness during a global pandemic.  We are celebrating the 1 year milestone in a fun interview with my Hot Guy Editor (aka Norm, my hubby).  We created a set of questions, answered them separately and then came together in the podcast booth to see how far apart our answers were!  Its a fun celebration of the Happier You Podcast Community and the ups and downs of its first year.  Thanks for a great year everyone, it is way more fun because you are here with us!

This years’ success has only fueled the excitement to bring more happy to more people.  Let’s share this awesome community of people finding their happy and inspire others to do the same.

Resources I referenced this week:
Why You Need to Bring Back Anticipation (episode 14)
The Gifts Of Imperfection –  Brené Brown

I hope you enjoy this week’s podcast. Don’t forget we’d love to see you over on the Facebook Group, The Happier You Podcast!
And remember you can sign up for the next 21 Day Happiness Challenge Here.We’ll be starting another one soon!

Episode Transcript:

Bona: Hi, happy people and welcome back. Today is our special one-year anniversary episode of The Happier You Podcast. This is actually the 40th episode. We started the podcast on a weekly basis. About six months in, we decided to dial it back to one episode every two weeks as we figured out our rhythm and realized that despite the pandemic, we could still get outside, and enjoy some weekend day trips.

We chose a little bit more of a life than a weekly podcast.

This week, we decided to take a look back. And for those that have been with us for a while, you will recognize that this is like our year in review. To make it a little bit different. I invited the one I called my hot guy editor, Norm on with me. Say hi Norm.

Norm: Hi norm.

Bona: All right, smarty pants. How about you tell the happy community what we decided to do with this episode?

Norm: Well, we sat down to brainstorm, came up with a few questions related to The Happier You Podcast that we each answered individually. And so, we’re likely to have completely different answers, you know, as they say, men are from Mars, women are from Venus.

Bona: And we definitely are two very different people. So, this will be a lot of fun. I’m super curious about your answers. So let’s just dive in with the first question.

Norm:  All right. So, I’m Mr. Hot dice. I get to ask you what your happiness level is today compared to one year ago, let’s call that the pre pandemic times.

Bona: This was a tough one to quantify. It’s definitely higher. I know that for sure, because happiness is sort of my focus on a daily level these days. Over the past year and a half, I’ve spent time getting to know myself and acknowledge how I react to things and ask myself, what do I need in my life? I’ve been focused on adding things that lift me up emotionally, or at least helped me through the tough times as well.

I’ve learned to set boundaries, so I’m not in as many situations that suck my energy and happiness.

In the words of Dan Harris, I am definitely at least 10% happier, but I think it’s even more than that.

How about you?

Norm: So definitely happier than before the podcast started. This is despite a year where we couldn’t travel because of the pandemic, and we love to travel. Also, a year because we couldn’t see our families and we love our families too.

We also had very limited social interactions, which is for me, what recharges me. So despite all that I know it’s happier than it was before.

Bona: All right. So, I think this is my question. What was your biggest, unexpected bonus to doing this project?

Norm: So, for me, I found that it brought me into your world. So, you read a ton of happiness books. And so, I never really listened to what you had to say before. And in the sense of, you talked to me about all these books, but I didn’t really listen, I didn’t have five times of editing the podcast, to really listen to the words and really let them sink in. You know that the self-help is not really my thing.

The bonus is that I got to learn something that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

There’s a pile of other bonuses that are good. Like keeping up my mental health and helping you put a podcast together were also bonuses that were unexpected a lot of time together.

That’s it. That’s my answer. So, what about you? What’s the biggest unexpected bonus for your passion project?

Bona: Well, I had a little trouble narrowing it down to just one. So I have one with a couple of honorable mentions. , Number one actually is the people. I did this because I figured other people probably felt that same gaping hole as I felt when I realized something was missing in my life. And by doing this, I figured that I might be able to inspire others to help fill their hole.

What happened is I’ve surrounded myself with people who not only understood that feeling of missing something. But they’re happy to be on this journey with me.

I found myself in a community of like-minded people on a similar quest.

Some I knew before, some I’ve only just met, and others are friends and family around me who were more than happy to engage in the conversation once it came to the forefront with the podcast. So if you make me choose just the one, it’s the amazing community of people that I’ve discovered I’m surrounded with.

But my honorable mentions before you cut me off is…

It’s the feeling that I’m where I’m supposed to be.

That even though some days I don’t feel worthy, and I get scared that I’m not sharing the right message. Most of the time, I’m thrilled to be on this journey, and I’m excited about the adventure that lies ahead.

And my second honourable mention. I think I can honestly say that through all this personal work and sharing and vulnerability, I have figured out how to love myself. I’ve learned to embrace my unique weirdness, and that’s an amazing feeling to know that loving acceptance feels amazing.

And even better than in having that, I can freely share loving acceptance with everyone around me.

Norm: Okay. That’s a good answer.

Bona: Even if I broke the rules?

Norm: Totally. All right. So moving on to the next question. What is the one thing, the advice that you talked about during your episodes that you recorded over the last year, that gave you the biggest boost of happiness, or simply put, what gave you the biggest bang for the happiness buck?

Bona: I actually love this question and again, I have two, I couldn’t narrow it down to one. One obviously is the positive focus.

I didn’t have time this year to be negative and focus on what we were missing out on, because I was so focused on this project and being grateful and happy and finding ways to focus on being grateful and happy.

But the number two of everything and all the episodes when I look back is absolutely self-compassion. I think it’s a superpower and it’s something that I have truly embraced. How about you?

Norm: Well, I had to look at the podcast feed to figure it out which one. And it was a toss-up between celebrating the small wins and the episode on anticipation. But I did pick one.

So, because of the pandemic, Bring Back The Anticipation for me was a real game changer. All the travel and social plans, when really it went down the drain. I lost my weekly hockey game and although I play in one of the worst arenas around. I still really enjoyed that time that I got together with some guys once a week. And there was a lot of social.

Bona: A lot of social. Yeah, it was a fun league.

Norm:  So, a few weeks into the pandemic, you really pushed for our family to bring back anticipation. Our infamous chip night, was a game changer in our household. So a year later, we’re still waking up saying “it’s chip day”, and so I jumped on board and booked some trips a year ahead.

And you know, there’s one coming up in May. So a year in a bit later on, and even though we didn’t do some of the trips that we planned, like didn’t go skiing in February. It’s still something for us to have look forward to for this whole year. So, I think it was good.

I would recommend Bring Back The Anticipation, episode 14, posted, on 27th of June, 2020.

Bona: I love that one actually. And I think we’ve learned to be flexible in our anticipation too.  Cool. Okay. This one I think, is going to be interesting. So, what was your toughest challenge over the year?

Norm: Well, the biggest challenge I think, was not having the answers to all your tech issues. It sounds weird for an engineer to say that, but even if I know the basics, most things you dealt with, I wasn’t an expert in. I usually solve most issues, but really keeping up with you, tech wise was a bit of a challenge this year.

You went well above what I know in some of these things. So really that’s an compliment here. Also, you would do everything and then you’d come to me for feedback. And it was really hard to tell you that your energy’s off, or maybe you should think about what the audience is really looking for when they’re listening to the podcast.

In the end. Well, I’m fairly sure I crushed your spirits a few times over the past few months, but I think I got better at giving feedback because you seem to be coming back for it more enthusiastically. What about you? What was your toughest challenge over the last year?

Bona:  If this was a quiz show, a couple’s quiz show, we’d get the ding, ding ding on this one.

For me it was learning through the criticism.

So exactly what you said. I would think I nailed an episode, and then you would come back and pick it apart. And I, a couple of times I had to start from scratch, and it was tough emotionally. It was hard to take, but what’s cool about it is I’ve learned that you make me better. And so learning to stay open and be ready for you to push me and ask those questions when I missed the Mark. It’s been super challenging, but super rewarding, because I think, yeah, we make a good team.

Norm: We do. So, the next one is, what do you think this year has done for our relationship or family?

Bona: I think it’s changed our focus.

Our conversations are about what is important to us. We focus on all our blessings and we make sure that we let each other know how much we appreciate each other.

I think we’re much better at communicating as a family overall, and we are very open with what we need from each other. For me personally, I honestly believe that all this personal work on myself, learning to love and accept me for who I am, right now, flaws and all, has made me a much better mom than I was a year ago.

I also think that despite the fact that this is my voice on the podcast, I love that you edit me and support me every episode. And like I said earlier, some of them have been a little rough. But the end listener would never know what we went through to get there. What about you, babe?

Norm: Well, you know how the saying goes,

What doesn’t kill you make you stronger.

So, it’s never been that difficult to do it, but a few times, you know, editing on a Sunday night to put out a podcast on the Monday morning and trying to play hockey at the same time would have been really hard. So, I’m glad I didn’t have that to kind of contend with. And when we went to an episode every two weeks, that really took the pressure off and made things a lot easier.

So, as you talked about before, our level of happiness is higher than it used to be. So, our relationship benefits from that part. On a few occasions, we gave her a little guy a little bit too much screen time. He’s never complained,

Bona: I think he fully supports the podcast!

Norm: All things considered; this year has been good for our family.

Norm: All right. For this last question, I have to say, I’m pretty sure about the answer, but the people that listen might not know. So, the question is, why do you continue doing it? What’s your motivation? Is it intrinsic or is it external motivation?

Bona:  

I keep doing it because it’s challenging and fun. And I’ve always loved reading and learning about how to be a better me.

And as you’ve said, many times, I’m the person who reads the books and shares the knowledge. But I’m also externally motivated because. I want other people to find this feeling of self-acceptance and love, and ultimately the happier that I feel. And I think we, as a family feel. When I hear stories that something we shared in the podcast, or now, even since we’ve done the 21 Day Happiness Challenge, when I hear that something that we’ve shared, helps someone else find their happier and got them closer to loving and living their unique life. I get totally excited and jazzed to keep going. I want to keep figuring out what else I can do or say to help someone else get this appreciation for life. So, what about you? Why do you keep doing this?

Norm: Well for me, it’s all about the money dear.  It’s all about the money coming in, which there is none, there’s only money going out.

Bona: So why do you keep doing it?

Norm:  So, yeah, all joking aside for me, I would simply say that it’s partly about learning more about our happiness, both of us, and it’s part keeping busy during the pandemic and  part supporting my best friend and The Happier You Community.

Bona: Cool. Thank you. Thanks for doing this with me, babe.

Norm: No problem.

Bona: We got one one same answer. It’s more than I thought we’d get. So that’s awesome. All right. Happy people. Thanks for joining us again this week. I’m super excited that this is our one-year anniversary, and obviously it wouldn’t be as much fun if we didn’t have this community of people listening and giving feedback and being a part of this journey with us.

So, today’s challenge is just to share, share this community. I honestly believe that.

The more of us that learn to love and accept ourselves, the more we can give to others. And I just think that type of environment is where we want to go.

In honor of our, One year anniversary, I finally figured out how to describe the podcast.

So, when I meet new people or when I see people that I haven’t seen in a while they ask, Oh, what’s your podcast about? So, the happier you podcast is about inspiring people to stop comparing their lives to others and start focusing on making their own journey unique. Authentic and happier. And that’s why I want to share this with as many people as we can just encourage people to enjoy making their own life unique, authentic, and happier.

And it would not be a one-year anniversary episode if we didn’t have a quote from Brené. So, in honor, of all of the inspiration I’ve received from her over this past year, she says,

“To be nobody but yourself in a world, which is doing its best night and day to make you everybody but yourself, means to fight the hardest battle, which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.  Staying real is one of the most courageous battles that we’ll ever fight. “

Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

All right Happy people. Thanks for joining us. Have a good one and go get your happy on.